SurveyMonkey Apply Pricing, Features, Reviews & Comparison of Alternatives

Pros
I liked how the implementation specialist was willing to answer all of our questions and work with us on our incredibly complex process to make sure our end product met all of our needs.

Cons
There are a few features we wished it had, but we understand our application process is far more complex than most organizations.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
The training and onboarding was awesome. What could have been intimidating learning new software was paced so well, with training videos I could re-watch and plenty of support in helping us get set up initially. Support continued through each stage of the scholarship cycle. The "lite" version of Apply was a perfect fit for our small scholarship program. The dashboard data told us how many students explored the site, even if they didn't submit applications. We never knew this before. We completely replaced our old manual processes with efficient, automated systems, saving hours and hours of staff administration time. The members of our review committee found it so intuitive to use, they were able to review materials and score applicants without help from our staff. Apply kept everything organized and accessible. And I was so impressed by the level of service from the Apply team. The decision to renew our subscription is a no-brainer.

Cons
I have no complaints regarding Apply. While the scholarship application form can be customized to a high degree, there are one or two fine points where we had to work around the limitations. But everything can be accomplished that we need. I know the price is more than reasonable for what we get, but it can be a hard sell to the board of trustees of a small nonprofit organization who would rather put the money toward scholarships. Because they don't all work with the software, they may not realize the huge advantages. I have to explain that it's our "mission-critical infrastructure investment."

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
There's really nothing we liked about SMA because we never got as far as being able to use the software for our grants program. During the implementation process, it became clear that there are several significant flaws in the structure of SMA. As an example, SMA/FluidReview was developed for the Canadian market. As such, the organization information form (which cannot be changed) asks for CITY and PROVINCE. There are no fields for the US market such as STATE and ZIP CODE. Yes, you can add custom fields for STATE and ZIP CODE; however, these fields will appear at the end of the form away from the rest of the address information. And adding custom fields does not remove the PROVINCE field. The implementation person we worked with suggested that we ask for a US-style address on our grant application form, thus duplicating data entry. Using work-around solutions (kludges) was the order of the day. As another example, formatting for the budget form that was created for us was chaotic and confusing. Some number fields had one decimal place, others none (and not the two decimal places we were expecting). Some fields had a US dollar symbol; others did not. Again, we were told that SMA/FluidReview was developed with French formatting conventions in mind. Early on we did not see any way SMA would produce an elegant, easy to navigate solution designed for use in the US. It was at this point that we encountered the aforementioned refund policy.

Cons
The implementation process did not go smoothly for us. We were asked questions about our current grants program, which is rather simple: we use one web form hosted by Formstack. The implementation person intended to simply replicate our current grants program. This made no sense to me. We were never given the opportunity to understand what features SMA could bring to our grants process. I'm not sure how this type of implementation process would work for a foundation that is just getting started or is using an informal paper-based process. These implementation questions would be overwhelming. The biggest problem with SMA (and other similar grants software packages) is the amount of time and training expected of an administrator. These grants software packages expect that there will be one person within a foundation whose responsibility it is to administer the software. During the implementation process, it became very clear that SMA expects that administrators would devote significant time to not only training but also administrative duties. Sadly, there is no structured training program, no technical manual. So, training would be catch-as-catch can (a video here, an article there). Without someone on the foundation payroll who has a high degree of technology knowledge, SMA would be a very tough go for small foundations with few to no staff. Before you commit to SMA/FluidReview, make sure you have an administrator with a high degree of technological knowledge (and patience).

Rating breakdown

Pros
This software is saving paper, time, and money. This new system can be accessed anywhere at anytime. After processing paper applications for 28 years it is a nice change.

Cons
We had a bug in the system that merged a couple of our applicants when creating a user upload and we really never figured out why.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
The biggest pro the ease of use and the intuitive nature of the interface. It is an easy way to create simple surveys.

Cons
It lacks the features and overall customization of their competitors. Not the best choice for in-depth surveys looking to capture complex data.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 6/10